A Tale of Two Musicians 2

Musician #1

You finally made it
You’re performing a set on KEXP, the legendary Seattle-based public radio station
Soon, you and your bandmates will be seen on their YouTube channel, among the best indie bands of the last decade. 
It took a decade to get here
You and your bandmates grinded, playing shitty gigs and persevering in the hopes that the industry insiders would open the gates for you
And now the gates are beginning to open
The business of your band has been outsourced to professionalized agencies who know the right people and have all the resources you need
While you’re new to the industry, you’re a grizzled veteran at this point, having made your way through the DIY circuit over the course of your 20’s.
Now you’re looking at complex record deals and large scale international tours. Your years of grinding are paying off.
 
You’re tired. But you’re so beyond tired that you stop noticing. 
You’re burned out but this is what you burned yourself out for.
Everyone back home is impressed. You proved them wrong. 
You’ve avoided the corporate/service job for several years now and hustled your way to surviving through music. 
Of course, most of your time isn’t spent doing music. It’s spent traveling long distances by car, loading and unloading gear and strategizing
But now you get to be around celebrities, which must feel validating.

The story you’ve been telling yourself about you, your purpose, your identity, it’s all starting to pan out the way you hoped it would.
Still, you’re tired. 
The only people who really understand what you’re going through are your 3 bandmates
They’ve been with you every step of the way and now it’s the 4 of you vs the world. 
Around the world. Everywhere you go, you’re gone the next day. You’re like a ghost in reality. A brand online, an idea people consume.
Your job is to perform and sell. Success is measured in dollars. The more you succeed, the more people rely on you to keep succeeding.
The pressure for the chart to go up is enormous.

Your sense of self outside the band doesn’t really exist anymore. Everything you are is wrapped up in this project. 
But at least that project was featured on KEXP. 
Still, the idea of capitalist success is shallow and ephemeral. After a few days, the rush from achieving the milestones you worked years to achieve fade. 
You’re left relying on a team of hired guns, who you pay as long as they help you achieve popularity. 
You play to a thousand people per night but you still feel alone.
Seas of people cheer your name and know the words to your songs but that doesn’t change the fact you’re running on empty. 

You’re just getting started though.
KEXP is a launching pad for bigger and better things. 
The 4 of you are about to get everything you ever wanted.

Musician #2

You live outside D.C. in an Incubator Village with 120 other people, mostly musicians. 

Everyone lives by themselves in a tiny home, shares communal meals, maintains the village and makes art together. 

The village is full of authentic self expression, shared with the world through the internet and live performances.

The village is where your best friends are, your closest collaborators and maybe even some frenemies. 

In addition to housing, your village has an indoor performance area, a cafe, an amphitheater, a multipurpose space used for yoga and meditation, and active farmland where crops and livestock are cared for and consumed by the community. 

It’s 8 AM and the Incubator bus is making its first trip of the day to D.C.  On your 60 min ride to Incubator House, you chat with one of your tribemates about an upcoming show. Then you take a short nap. 

You wake up when the bus driver announces your arrival at Incubator House. This is where the city dwellers live (Incubator members who prefer to live in the city). 

You’re here because part of your role this season is acting as band facilitator for new members. When you walk into Incubator House, you help set up the equipment up for them and talk to them before they start rehearsing. Their first Incubator show is coming up and it’s at Incubator Village. 

As someone who’s been a full-time member for 2 years now, you’ve seen a lot of things and you’re happy to shepherd the newbies through their first show. The goal is to make it as fun and stress-free as possible, but there’s always almost nerves before the first time and that’s why you’re there. 

After you set the band up for rehearsal, you say hi to your friend, Barno. He’s not in the band, he just lives there (with 4 other people) and is cutting some potatoes in the kitchen. 

Most of the time, you’re back at Incubator Village. You work 25-30 hours a week. Most of that time is spent creating and performing music in the village’s various practice areas and venues.

You also help out in the kitchen a couple days a week. Everyone in the village usually eats dinner in the Eating Hall. You help prep the food and set it out for the buffet-style meals. 

The last part of your role is leading yoga classes 3 mornings a week. 

That’s what you decided to do this season. 6 months ago, you were harvesting fruit from the fields, leading yoga classes and on tour.

Your tour in the previous season was a 3 week tour throughout the Northeast with one of your bands. It started in the Western PA Incubator Village outside Pittsburgh. 

You got there Sunday, shortly before dinner, and were greeted by one of their tour facilitators. You were shown your tiny homes, the different venues you’ll be playing at, and the hall where you’ll eat throughout your week-long stay there. 

The first night, they threw a party to welcome you.

The next day, around 20 villagers gathered in the Learning Room to hear you teach an esoteric topic of great interest to you.

And that night, your band performed the first of several shows. This one was acoustic in their Listening Room.

The next night, you performed in their biggest venue, the Great Hall, an indoor/outdoor pavilion that can fit 500 people. Non-Incubator members from the city of Pittsburgh even came to hear you play. Many of them came on the Incubator bus. After the show, you enjoyed hearing the several aftershow jams happening concurrently in different spaces around the Great Hall.  

Over the next 6 days, you made new friends, got to know a new community and were able to share your art with enthusiastic fans. 

Next up is the upstate NY Incubator Village, located between Buffalo and Rochester. There, you settle into a new tiny home and shared experiences with a new community over another week.

Halfway through your stay in upstate NY, you have an afternoon off. You take the Incubator bus into Buffalo to see an old friend you haven’t seen in a couple years. They’re visiting home from L.A., where they’re in a band. 

Over coffee, you listen to them explain how they finally recorded their KEXP set. How it’s been a grind to support themselves with music but it’s finally paying off.

They seem exhausted, physically and mentally, but you don’t say anything. 

You tell them about the tour you’re on, your home in Incubator Village, the types of music you’re making. You try not to talk too much about the sense of community you feel every day because you get the sense your friend doesn’t have that. 

Eventually they confess that traveling the country alone has taken a toll on them. They talk about the stress of not knowing if they have a long term future in music and the frustrations that come with  outsourcing your support system to a corporation and their minions.

You think about how much support you get from people you know who are happy to give it, the stability you feel knowing you’re part of a countrywide network of equals, the joy of being guided around the country and feeling at home wherever you go.

You sense your friend hasn’t been give the opportunities to form the types of relationships you have at home or on tour.

You part ways and wish them luck.

A few weeks later, you return to your home village. First thing you do is grab a cup of coffee at the cafe, where you run into your friends who excitedly greet you after not seeing you for weeks. They regale you of all the things that happened since you left before you tell them of your tour.

You take off a couple days to readjust. You’re happy to be home. You feel well-rested, energized and excited to be alive.